


Journeys

by malinaldarose (coralysendria)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/malinaldarose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy and Rory may be trapped in the past, but that's no reason not to take the occasional road trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journeys

**Author's Note:**

> For the Road Trip square on my Trope Bingo card.
> 
> Since this is posted at nearly the last minute for Round One Amnesty, it is unbetaed.
> 
> Edit: Wow. _So_ embarrassed that I originally misspelled that title. I'm usually a better speller than that. That's what you get when you post at nearly the last minute, I guess.

I.

"I always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty," Rory said faintly, gazing up at the great statue's green foot, "until the night she came to see me."

Amy smacked him lightly on the arm. "It's not an Angel, anymore," she said. "The Angels are gone. We managed that, at least. And since we live in New York, you need to stop having nightmares about it."

"I still would feel more comfortable not taking my eyes off it."

Amy sighed. "Don't worry. There are plenty of people watching it right now."

Rory had agreed to accompany Amy to see the Statue of Liberty in its rightful place on Liberty Island. The Statue stood there, holding her torch and her tablet, serenely welcoming immigrants to the United States, as she had for scores of years. Rory's nightmares, though, still contained the snarling face he'd seen leaning over the rooftop of Winter Quay. They had already walked past the site of the apartment building where the Weeping Angels had feasted on the time energy of their prey to find a quiet park there. It was as if Winter Quay had never existed. Perhaps in this timeline created by the paradox of Amy and Rory's self-sacrifice, it hadn't. Maybe in this patched-together time from which the Doctor could not rescue them, the Statue of Liberty had always been just that: a statue.

Rory shivered, but allowed Amy to lead him into the Statue's base. Later, as he and Amy gazed out at their adopted city from the windows of Lady Liberty's crown, he nodded. Just a statue. Perhaps there would be no more nightmares.

II.

"Why did we pay an enormous sum of money to fly from New York to Buffalo, again?" Rory asked as he and Amy walked through the Buffalo International Airport's terminal.

Amy's long-suffering sigh said volumes. "'Look, Amy,'" she said, mimicking her husband's voice. "'They're going to be removing the dam at Niagara Falls. Wouldn't that be something to see?'"

The American Falls had been dry for the last few months, the water diverted to the Horseshoe Falls by a coffer dam installed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Erosion studies had been conducted, some repairs had been made to the landscape, and now the dam was to be removed and the flow restored. It was not, perhaps, a _hugely_ historic occasion -- in twenty years' time, probably no one who hadn't witnessed it would even remember it -- but Rory had been desperate to divert Amy. This last summer had been the worst since the Angel had deposited them in the past, because _this_ summer, they had already seen once. Because the highlight of _this_ summer hadn't been the partial diversion of the Niagara River. No, the historic high point of _this_ summer had been one small step for Mankind, and one whacking great kick up the backside for the Silence. Which reminded Rory that he was still resolutely not looking down dark alleys or into forgotten corners, because their numbers might be diminishing, but it was still early days yet, and they were undoubtedly still out there. He had for years dreaded the day that black tick marks started appearing on his or Amy's skin, but thus far....

With an effort, he dragged this thoughts back to Buffalo from Florida. "I know that part," Rory said patiently, "but we could just as easily have taken a train, which is less expensive, and then we could have seen even more of the state." 

"Oh, hush. The books are doing well enough that we can afford to splurge on airfare," Amy said. In addition to the Melody Malone series, which she had taken over after River's first book, she had recently started publishing children's novels, and they were doing all right. "We are going to have a proper Niagara Falls honeymoon. Bad hotel, bad food, gorgeous natural wonder. Now shut up and enjoy yourself."

That sounded more like Amy. "Yes, ma'am."

In the end, the restoration of the flow over the American Falls was a bit anticlimactic. They found a great vantage point -- across the river in Ontario. The dam wasn't, as Rory had rather expected, simply blown up and the flow restored. Instead, it was removed gradually, and it took hours for the first drops to even reach the cliff edge; many of the people with whom they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the morning had given up by that time, but despite the November chill, Amy wanted to stay and watch, and when the first water dropped off the cliff edge, she cheered. By the next day, the cataract looked more like the photographs he had seen. He preferred it that way; the stark, jag-toothed cliff with the tumbled talus below had looked far too much like a threatening alien landscape for his comfort. 

Their proper Niagara Falls honeymoon turned out to be a great success, and by the end of the week, when they flew out, the sparkle was back in Amy's eyes.

 

III.

"Are you certain about this?" Rory asked. "We could still back out."

The three of them -- Rory, Amy, and Melody -- had traveled to Washington, D. C., ostensibly for the Cherry Blossom Festival. To Rory's mortification, he had driven a station wagon. But after finding Melody in January, they were a proper family now, and proper families owned station wagons. But it was definitely something Rory's father would have driven. No, Rory corrected himself. His grandfather.

Amy took her eyes off Melody, who was hugging a cherry tree, long enough to aim a glare at her husband. "We've discussed this, Rory, and I think he needs to know. Besides. _This_ invitation was delivered by the postal service. If we didn't show up, he'd trace it back to us, anyway."

"Very true," a gravelly voice said. They turned to find Canton Everett Delaware III standing behind them, a TARDIS-blue envelope in his hand. " _This_ invitation?" 

"Canton!" Amy enveloped the FBI agent in a hug. "Oh, it's so good to see you again."

"Hello, Amy. Hello, Rory." Canton squinted at them both. "You're older. Much older. How can you be this much older?" His eyes flicked to the little girl who had run over and taken Amy's hand. "And you have...a daughter?"

"It's a long story," Rory said, shaking Canton's hand.

"And where's the Doctor?"

"That's part of the long story," Amy said. "We promised Melody that we'd show her the cherry blossoms."

Canton squinted at the cloudless sky. "It's a good day for it," he agreed. He knelt down on one knee, putting himself at Melody's eye level. "So your name is Melody? My name is Canton." He held out his hand. "I'm a friend of your parents."

Melody gazed at him for a disconcerting few seconds, then shook his hand. "I remember you," she said. "You were at the orphanage."

Canton looked up sharply at Amy and Rory. 

"That's part of what we have to talk to you about," Rory said. 

"Well. Maybe we should walk?" Canton suggested.

They walked in silence for a time, until Melody, losing interest in the boring adults, tugged her hand free of her mother's and ran ahead. "Not too far, Melody," Amy called after her. The child flapped a hand in their general direction without turning around. As the three adults watched, she started whirling around under a blossom-laden tree, her arms outstretched, her whole face lit with joy.

"All right," Canton said, his eyes on the child. "Explanations, please."

"That's Melody," Amy said. "That's our daughter."

"And she's the child from the orphanage."

"Yes," Rory said. "And she's also...River Song. Or she will be."

Canton raised a brow and turned away from the whirling child, but said nothing. Amy cracked first.

"It's not that difficult, really, Canton. I was kidnapped by agents of the Silence while I was pregnant. She was born in the future, and we thought she was safe, but she was stolen from us, and raised here in the past. They were turning her into a weapon against the Doctor. We actually first met her as River Song; we only found out that she was our Melody after she'd already been stolen away from us; it was River herself who told us."

"Not that difficult," Canton said drily.

"We're trapped here in the past ourselves," Rory added, "and after this summer...well, we remembered that she had escaped, so we started searching. As soon as...well, as soon as _we_ left the orphanage the first time, we started searching. And we finally found her this past winter in New York."

"You can't tell anyone, Canton," Amy said. She watched the giggling child who was now reaching up to delicately touch low-hanging blossoms. "We have a chance to raise her, now, a chance we didn't have before. But she's not a normal human child, and if anyone finds out, they'll try to take her from us."

"You're not exactly normal yourselves, are you?" Canton asked.

"We're very normal," Rory said. "I'm a nurse, and Amy's a writer. And we're a mother and father. It doesn't make any difference when or where we were born, or that we were trapped by alien assassins in our own pasts. Yeah, we've seen and done things that our neighbors haven't, but we're just people trying to do their best for their daughter."

Canton nodded. "And what do you want from me?"

Amy sighed. "We just thought you should know," she said. "And...maybe you'd come visit us occasionally? Now that you know we're here. You're the only person here that knew us before, Canton. Right now, our parents are children." She turned away and reached out for Rory, unwilling to let Canton see her cry. It was undignified at her age. Rory grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"And the Doctor?"

Rory answered, leaving Amy to compose herself. "Apparently there had been so much time travel into and around the place and time where we were trapped that he couldn't bring the TARDIS there without destroying the universe. Again." He shrugged. "It's all right. We'd been thinking about settling down, anyway, Canton. We'd been travelling with the Doctor for a very long time. River sometimes pops in to see us; she lives a very odd life, our time-traveling daughter, but she did warn us the last time she was here that it might be a long time before she returned, and now we know why." He cast a fond look at Melody.

Canton had one more question, of course. "Are you changing history here? How can they turn her into a weapon if they don't have her?"

At that, Amy did sob. Rory moved closer and put his arm around her. "They'll find her again, Canton. Somehow, some way, they will find her again, and they'll do it. We watched her kill the Doctor ourselves, long ago. It didn't really work out for either of them, but they will manage to turn her into their weapon. But who knows? Maybe it's this time we have, right here, right now -- maybe it's spinning under cherry blossoms while her parents watch -- that keeps her from becoming a total monster. Because you've met River, Canton, and she's a good person."

"Yes," Canton agreed. He looked at the child again and smiled. "You should be proud."

"We are," Amy replied. "We are."

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in seeing the dry Nigara Falls, here are a couple of links:
> 
> http://www.niagarafrontier.com/dewater.html
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBtnUZESk0 (There are other videos, but this is probably the best, but turn your volume down; the camera, as one commenter describes it, sounds like a diesel engine.)
> 
> This was originally intended to be a Five Plus One fic, but...see above re: almost last minute.... It may eventually be added to, but at the moment, I can't think of anywhere else for them to go.
> 
> _Doctor Who_ is owned by the BBC. This is a fan work. No infringement is intended and no profit will be had hereby.


End file.
